Back in 2010, the brain trust at CagePotato HQ compiled a list of the 25 most essential MMA Twitter feeds to follow. Boy, do we sure know how to pick ‘em. Miguel Torres, Kimbo Slice, Mayhem Miller, Reed Harris, Shane Carwin, and Strikeforce have all since faded out of relevance or gone off the deep end. Wait, Reed does what now? Are you sure? Nevermind — we’re back with an updated list of who you should really be following on Twitter, and this time we’ve actually put some thought into it instead of blindly tossing darts at our screen while simultaneously using a Shakeweight. Please note, this is 2013 and if you don’t already know you should be following Dana White, Arianny Celeste, or Ariel Helwani, you’re probably the reason Jon Jones is defending his title against Chael Sonnen this Saturday at UFC 159. Speaking of the gangster from West Linn…

Bio: “Godfather of integrity; dual masters in dominance and modesty; once outboxed Hemingway; & author of this year’s bestseller, available NOW on Amazon”

If you thought Sonnen refused to break kayfabe only when the cameras were rolling, you must not have been paying attention because his gimmick is boundless. The People’s Champion maximizes his 140-character limit with every emasculating jab at his opponents, peers, and detractors in the MMA media. The American Gangster is the only man on Twitter to follow absolutely no one, not even his own mother.

Sample Tweet: “15 – the number of letters in the word hydropneumatics as well as Chael beats Jones. #UFC159 #4/27/13″

Somewhere in the back your mind is a Mt. Rushmore of MMA, one for fighter and one for non-fighters. On the latter, you’d undoubtedly have Dana White in addition to your pick of Charles “Mask” Lewis Jr., Bruce Buffer, or Joe Rogan. However, you only get to pick two of the guys I’ve listed because the second spot on the mountain is reserved for the most recognized referee in all of MMA, “Big” John McCarthy.

No one has had a bigger impact on the sport of mixed martial arts without having actually fought someone or having the last name of Fertita or White. Few have stepped inside the Octagon more times than McCarthy and almost no one has helped grow the sport from birth to the dark ages and into the mainstream arena that it is in today. And you thought he just asked the fighters if they were ready and raised the winner’s hand?

“Big” John McCarthy was kind enough to sit down with CagePotato recently to discuss his new book ‘Let’s Get It On!‘ which can be purchased on Amazon. The book is 50% MMA history lesson, 50% autobiography, and 100% worth every penny spent to own a copy and every minute spent reading. So, without further adieu, let’s get it on!

Whether you’re interested in some fascinating firsthand accounts of the behind the scenes goings on in the early days of the UFC and the origins of some of MMA’s rules and regulations or you simply want to get to know one of the most important MMA figureheads the sport has ever known, you need to pick up a copy of “Big” John McCarthy’s “Let’s Get It On! The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee.”

The biographical account of McCarthy’s life as a son, brother, father, husband, police officer, coach and referee was co-written by acclaimed MMA reporter and the author of Randy Couture’s book, “Becoming the Natural: My Life In and Out of the Cage,” Loretta Hunt, and has been lauded by several members of the MMA media as one of 2012′s must-read books for fans of the sport.

Loretta will be our special guest on this week’s episode of The Bum Rush Radio Show on Friday to talk about the book and we’ll have a review of the tome on the site next week.

Among them, DW expresses his belief that the UFC didn’t really have any competition in the MMA marketplace, even before the acquisition of Strikeforce. Now, we’re not totally sure how that jives with his claims last month that the UFC is not a monopoly, but whatevs. Moving on … Non also becomes (as far as we know) the first “mainstream” reporter to personally ask White about his company’s denial of media credentials to several high-profile MMA reporters during last weekend’s Strikeforce event. White responds by saying those people he’s banned are “dirty, dirty, dirty” and they’ll never be credentialed until somebody pries the UFC from his cold, dead hands. Throughout it all White lists back and forth between sounding totally likable (which kind of kills us to admit, but it’s true) and sounding a little like Tony Montana from Scarface.

If we had to pick one quote to serve as a microcosm for the whole interview – which we present here admittedly totally out of context – it would be this one: “Listen, I own the fucking thing,” Dana says. “At some point, you’ve got to get over it, you know what I mean?”

After being denied media access to cover last weekend’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley for CBS Sports (and apparently buying a ticket and going anyway), longtime reporter Loretta Hunt conducted a video chat with fellow scribe Jason Probst on Monday to discuss the ongoing banishment of many of the sport’s best-known journalists from events controlled by the UFC. We missed it, but since Zuffa, LLC’s brazen efforts to marginalize media it doesn’t deem friendly enough to its own interests is perhaps the biggest story consistently ignored by “credentialed” MMA sites (for obvious reasons, right?), we figure some of it needs repeating.

For starters, Hunt claims the honchos at CBS Sports are not impressed that Zuffa continues to conduct media relationships like a 13-year-old girl deciding who can ride the pony at her birthday party. It appears that heavy-hitters like CBS are used to a certain amount of professionalism from the entities they cover and the UFC obviously sorely lacks in that department. Zuffa has been such a pain in the ass that Hunt says CBS might just chuck it the fuck-it bucket and stop covering MMA entirely. So, that seems counterproductive. Her quotes – with props to Fight Opinion for the original transcriptions — and some of our own musings are after the jump …

About a year ago during an email exchange with a member of the UFC’s PR team about an interview I was setting up I pointed out a terribly uninformed article about UFC 115 printed by one of the most influential newspapers in Canada. “I guess Canwest can kiss their media credentials goodbye,” I quipped.

Obviously the sarcasm of my joke was not evident, perhaps due to my lack of a “winky face” at the end, and I got back the following reply:

“As to Canwest, it is unfortunate that the reporter took this view on the event but it would be unfair, and unprofessional, to attempt to combat this view by denying them future credentials. The press are free to print an opinion that may reflect negatively upon us and we would hope to further educate them so that future articles would be more even handed.”

News came to light today that several longtime members of the MMA media who have attended countless Strikeforce events have now been denied media credentials for this weekend’s Diaz vs. Daley event.

Josh Gross, Loretta Hunt and Jeff Sherwood were all shut out of Saturday night’s first major Zuffa-run Strikeforce show. All three have tumultuous past history with White and it looks like the UFC president isn’t one to forgive and forget.

Poor Dana White. He can’t catch a break. After being persecuted for his choice of words in the infamous ‘Other F-Word Blog,’ he’s still being victimized by the media. As he explained to Neil Davidson of the Canadian Press, his vitriolic response to Loretta Hunt was little more than him taking advantage of the voice granted him by the powerful forces of the information age:

"Back in 1987, if the media wrote something about you, you were screwed," he said. "You had no voice, you couldn’t say anything back. Well now with the Internet, you can. You can come back. Yeah, did I go a little over the top? Absolutely, but that’s me. I am over the top and I was so pissed off about it. …"

Exactly. Just one more reason why 1987 sucked compared to 2009. The difficulty in acquiring pornography without leaving the house? That’s another reason. White also claims that the mainstream media outlets that rarely cover the UFC but picked up this bit of salacious news “used me,” which is true in a way. It’s also true that the UFC uses the media to tell stories, hype fights, sell tickets and pay-per-views — and none of this is anything new.

"This is disheartening because this behavior is unacceptable," (AWSM President) Jenni Carlson wrote. "It establishes a hostile work environment not only for Loretta but all women who cover the UFC. We cannot accept that any female sports journalist would have to work in an environment of intimidation or a hostile workplace. … It is a mystery to me that a man who is always seeking more coverage and exposure for his sport would disenfranchise some of the very people who are covering, sponsoring and watching his sport — women.”

…it isn’t going away so easily, not even after the UFC took it off YouTube. For one, it’s still up elsewhere, such as Break, and for another, word has spread. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (known commonly as GLAAD) has denounced White’s use of the word “faggots” to describe the anonymous sources in Loretta Hunt’s article, and they’re calling on him to apologize publicly.

In the MMA blogosphere, MMA Payout wonders aloud whether sponsors like Bud Light and Harley-Davidson really want to be associated with that rant, and Cage Writer’s Maggie Hendricks reminds everyone that women also watch (and cover) the UFC, and generally don’t really like to hear men calling other women bitches.